Sept. 30, 2012. Downtown Dallas. My first 10 mile race. Cold and a little rainy. Decent course. Post race tacos and cervezas. My goal: to run my first race negative split….then drink the free cervezas. Mission accomplished!
It was hard at the beginning of the race to keep in control and not go out too fast. Trying to run my first negative split, so I wanted to stick to the plan. I wanted to see what it feels like to finish strong instead of struggling to cross the finish line. Plus I’d been reading how pretty much every world record is done with a negative split. Worth a shot. Worth some experimenting. I was able to do it, as you can see by my split times in the photograph picture below…
Watch the splits go down like an elevator.
It certainly helped that the last couple miles were all down hill! Of course the couple miles before that were all spent getting us to the top of said hill. But can I just say, or can I just write, that the coolest part of doing a negative split was that after the first couple miles of coasting, when I started to pick up tha pace, not a soul passed me! I spent the last 7-8 miles just passing people left and right. That was cool. I was just flying down the Katy Trail until it spit us out right by the American Airlines Center, from there it was a push to the finish around the corner*.
*There were also 5 and 10K races, of which we merged somewhere near the end, but the course and streets were spread out enough, it didn’t matter much.
Finishing Strong Like Bull.
I was pleased with my time of 1:21:55. At worst I wanted to run 8:30 miles – ended up running 8:12 miles! I didn’t know what to expect from a 10 mile race, but that was the goal I set before hand.
Anykidoodle, after the race I got to enjoy the free beervezas, but not a single taco! I waited to long and the lines were too long, and they eventually ran out. That’s OK tho. Had a badbutt brunch afterwards with the fams.
So to sum up: Ran the Taco Race and got the runs!
Piratebobcat 